Miles Bailey had served as FBI informant in Melinda Wormuth case

ALBANY — A boxing promoter who served as an FBI informant in a sting case targeting former Halfmoon Supervisor Melinda Wormuth was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison on Thursday for his role in an unrelated tax-fraud scheme.

Miles Bailey, 55, a boxing trainer and promoter who grew up in New York City and moved to Albany in 1988, admitted using bank accounts he controlled to deposit hundreds of illicit tax-refund checks between 2011 and 2014. The checks were the result of fraudulently filed tax returns using stolen identities of victims, including hundreds of residents from Puerto Rico.

Two Albany men who were conspirators in the scheme, Eric Thorne and James Simmons, both 51, were each sentenced to two years in federal prison this week.

Bailey used his personal bank accounts and accounts in the name of his Albany business, D.E. Caribe Taxes, to deposit the tax refund checks, which contained forged signatures and had been obtained filing false tax returns without the knowledge of many of the victims, authorities said.

Simmons pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and Thorne pled guilty to theft of public money. The Internal Revenue Service checks that had been mailed to addresses controlled by Bailey and his conspirators topped $1.9 million.

Miles Bailey stands in front of 98 Bradford Street where he is the landlord on May 7, 2009, in Albany, N.Y., where the alleged murder of Richard Hagin took place.

Miles Bailey stands in front of 98 Bradford Street where he is the landlord on May 7, 2009, in Albany, N.Y., where the alleged murder of Richard Hagin took place.

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN, TIMES UNION

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN, TIMES UNION

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Miles Bailey stands in front of 98 Bradford Street where he is the landlord on May 7, 2009, in Albany, N.Y., where the alleged murder of Richard Hagin took place.

Miles Bailey stands in front of 98 Bradford Street where he is the landlord on May 7, 2009, in Albany, N.Y., where the alleged murder of Richard Hagin took place.

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN, TIMES UNION

Informant who took down Halfmoon official headed to federal prison

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Bailey was involved in the scheme at the same time he was working for the FBI in 2013 to snare Wormuth. The former Halfmoon supervisor and councilwoman had accepted envelopes containing cash in exchange for using her political connections and official position at Bailey's request to lobby state officials to legalize mixed martial arts.

Wormuth pleaded guilty in 2015 to multiple state and federal crimes, including grand larceny for stealing her own campaign funds. She spent about a year in federal prison and Bailey's role as an informant was never detailed in court because Wormuth did not stand trial.

In the early 1990s, when he was 28, Bailey worked as a drug informant for the Albany Police Department in a case that led to the arrest of his daughter's godmother. Bailey later regretted that she was arrested and, when he threatened not to testify against her, authorities locked him up as a material witness, forcing his testimony.

Bailey was arrested on the federal criminal charges in October 2017. His federal public defenders had cast him as an oblivious participant who was duped by his conspirators into depositing the checks and transferring much of the money back to New York City, including more than $800,000 to Bailey's father.

Prosecutors countered in a trial brief filed last year that "after depositing the stolen funds, Bailey withdrew the money, used it at retail businesses and to pay bills, or distributed the proceeds to other accounts that he controlled and/or to co-conspirators."

The tax returns, which "were filed using real people's names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers," listed fake jobs and made-up addresses, as well as fictitious incomes and dependents, prosecutors said.

Federal authorities allege that many of the returns were filed from Bailey's "purported tax business," which he had operated from a residence along Madison Avenue in the Pine Hills section of Albany.